Hi, I made a thread back in the beginning of February asking for suggestions on which history/social science AP I should take for my senior year, but a bombshell has been dropped on me as I was recently informed that my school will not be offering AP Euro or AP US for the 2018-2019 school year. Apparently this is because not enough kids signed up for either class.
This is really stressing me out because I want to be a history major or something similar. I do not have any other classes in mind that could be sufficient replacements in my opinion. I have tried reaching out to my counselor, the social studies department chair, and my grade level principal about this and they each gave me mixed responses. The department chair and my principal said I could possibly take one of the classes at another school in my district, but when I asked my guidance counselor, she said this isn’t reasonable because of travel time.
I understand circumstances like this can arise, but I am worried because this affects the rigor of my schedule as I would not be taking the “most demanding” course load (as of now, my schedule has been filled with two unweighted electives). I am definitely going to talk to the people I listed again, but does anyone have any suggestions as what I should do or questions I should ask? Thank you.
Take it online, at ANY college after school or online (you can take college classes out of state online if the classes never meet), or through a teacher sponsor from independent study if you have the resources.
It happens, and colleges understand that. Although I am surprised that APUSH would be dropped since USH is a graduation requirement for basically all US-based students. Your GC can include an explanation in his/her Secondary School Report.
Your biggest issue is that you will need USH to graduate (I assume) and if another school in the district is not an option, you really have no choice but to suck it up and drop down a level, unless you can do it during the summer at a local college or online.
Regardless, assuming the balance of your schedule is sufficiently rigorous, not having an AP history class is not an issue, even for a potential history major.
Lots of college students, even at top colleges, go to high schools with limited AP offerings. My kids went to a HS with no AP history or English or sciences. One majored in poli sci and had her college senior thesis nominated as one of the top 60 in the US. The other graduated from a top technical college. Don’t worry about it.
Ask your counselor whether s/he will rate your course selections as “most demanding” if you take regular history; if the answer is “no”, ask what needs to be changed to get that indication.
@bopper I think that’s one of my best options. However, I don’t really know how dual enrollment works so I will have to talk to my counselor about that.
Dual enrollment means you take the class at a local CC, often for free through an agreement between your school and your cc. The class is college paced, meaning you have to show a lot of maturity and independence since you only have class twice or perhaps three times a week but have lots of homework. The class lasts one semester and covers a year or HS material, so you can take two per year. For a dual enrolled student, the big advantage would be a wider choice if history and social science classes. Taking intro to philosophy would also help rigor.
Dual enrollment means that you can take a college course while in high school and also have it count toward high school graduation requirements as well as college credit. As noted above, there may be a specific arrangement between your high school and a nearby college with respect to tuition and fees.
A dual enrollment curriculum is a lot different from the AP curriculum in a lot of classes. It is likely going to be more writing-based and less memorization-based at the CC especially if it is a Gordon Rule class.
I can’t see the benefit in that. You could put a concise comment in the Additional Info section of the Common App that your school didn’t offer those APs, I guess. But colleges only judge you on what is offered, not on what other schools offer. I wouldn’t even worry about dual enrollment. Take what your school offers and do well in it.
You aren’t expected to take courses that are not offered at your high school, but I would strongly recommend Dual Enrollment US History as well. It will probably be much more challenging than regular or Honors US History, but you can get a head start on college and probably a boost to your weighted GPA.
(Also, if you do end up doing DE, please read the textbook. Please. This is how I got my only B in a core class; I brilliantly thought that I could get by on just the class lectures because I did so in my APs and I had never taken a DE class before, and I ended up bombing the very first test since most of the material tested on wasn’t covered in class. That was my warm welcome to post-secondary education.)
I agree with the above 2 comments; you can’t take what is not offered and colleges know that. If necessary, your GC can mention it on the Secondary School Report, but there is no reason for you to mention it.
BYU offers online AP US History for $256.00 per semester as an online teacher led course. My daughter was able to take a BYU course (AP Biology), with administrative permission, when in a somewhat similar position. Also check to see if your high school has any Virtual High School options.
I know that others may not agree, but I’m not a fan of taking courses in your major as APs. I think that the courses in your major should be real college courses, not the AP version.
I don’t really have an issue with that. This is a case where one needs to separate out the issues:
• Taking challenging courses in HS
• Applying AP credits to one’s major
At this point, current juniors will not know what college they will ultimately attend. The college may make the AP credit conversation moot. Mine as an example, and it varies by major, will either not allow the class to apply towards the major or will apply it to the major, but not reduce the number of classes that you need to take in college.
In the latter case, allowing substitution of an in-major elective or more advanced course for a lower level course that is replaced by AP credit is still a gain for the student, who gets to go into greater depth or breadth in his/her major than s/he would otherwise be able to.
Also, some subjects like math, does it really make sense to require a strong math student who completed calculus BC in high school (A in course, 5 on AP test) to retake a regular calculus 1 and 2 sequence (as opposed to moving on to a more advanced math course, or taking an honors or theoretical version of calculus)?
No, but continuing the example of my college, calc 1 and 2 are prereqs for the math major anyway and are not part of the number of courses required for the major. They do offer an honors version of multivariable and linear algebra for students who took it in HS. A better example, in my case, would be physics, where AP Physics C: Mech cannot be applied to the major, but the dept offers an honors version.
Anyway, my original point was really that a HS student should choose the most rigorous courses that they can handle, ideally across all core subjects, without worrying (at this time) on how it will impact course selections when s/he gets to college. First things first.
@skieurope@ucbalumnus Thank you for your responses. I think I am going to end up taking creative writing and film & comp. as replacements for AP Euro. I could take AP stat or computer science, but like I mentioned before, I want to go into the humanities, so I don’t think that taking those classes would be a good idea, even if they make my schedule more rigorous.
